June 22 Poll Report

By Bill James

June 22, 2019

June 22 Poll Report

Some Trumpers Return to the Poll

Good morning everybody.Yesterday’s poll was Klobuchar, Gillebrand, Trump and Buttigieg.It was obvious from previous polls that Buttigieg would finish first in this heat.Since he had a previous score of 1167 and there were 2,217 points total among these four candidates (22% of the vote), we would have expected that Buttigieg would get 51% of the vote.Buttigieg did win, but not quite as big as expected; he got 47%.

The reason for the shortfall was Donald Trump.Trump’s support in my polls (a) was less than proportional even when I started this process in early April, and (b) has been dwindling steadily, reaching the point of being embarrassing—not embarrassing to him; embarrassing to me.While I am not a Trump supporter, I would prefer for the polls to reflect the nation as much as possible.As the Trump supporters had not been voting in my polls, his number was getting lower and lower, and thus the poll was getting to be less and less relevant in regard to him.

For some reason this reversed course strongly yesterday.Trump, expected to get just 12% of the vote, came in at 25%--one of the largest overperformances since I started doing these; maybe the largest, I don’t know.Depends on how you measure it. Anyway, Trump’s score improved by so much yesterday that, as a secondary effect, he improved the scores of almost everybody in his area.I poll candidates sort of by strength, understanding that you have to shake it up so that you’re not polling the same people against one another over and over, but Trump is polled generally against people with comparable strength.So, as a secondary result of Trump picking up 66 points, a whole bunch of other candidates picked up 5 to 9 points.

Also, I removed from the data the poll of May 2, which was a great poll for Kamala Harris, and the worst poll ever for Cory Booker; Harris beat Booker in that poll 40 to 9, although other polls would suggest that her strength is about twice his, not four times.Removing THAT poll from the data costs Harris 70 points, and gives Booker back 32 points. These are big numbers—candidates don’t normally move 66 or 70 points in a day—and so the removal of that poll also has secondary effects.What I am trying to explain is that 374 points have changed hands since yesterday, which is the largest total in more than a week.First, the summary of yesterday’s vote:

Scores

Klobuchar

484

Gillibrand

347

Trump

273

Buttigieg

1167

Predicted

Klobuchar

21

Gillibrand

15

Trump

12

Buttigieg

51

Actual

Klobuchar

17

Gillibrand

11

Trump

25

Buttigieg

47

Movements since yesterday:

Donald Trump is up 66 points as a result of yesterday’s poll.I’m glad to see that, and I’d like to see him continue to move up; it makes the poll results in general more credible.Not that I think anyone is going to accept this poll as representing the general electorate or should think of it that way; I just would like to be reasonably close to that standard.

Cory Booker is up 32 points as the result of the removal of the May 2nd poll, in which he got only 9% of the vote.

Stacey Abrams is up 19 points as a secondary effect. Doesn’t mean anything; she’ll drop as soon as I poll her again if she doesn’t decide to get in the race and start campaigning.

Beto O’Rourke is up 9 points as a secondary effect.

John Hickenlooper is up 9 points as a secondary effect.

Julian Castro is up 8 points as a secondary effect.Castro is currently being polled (today) and is currently overperforming, so he may should up again tomorrow.

Jay Inslee is up 8 points as a secondary effect, which is enough to push him over the 25% threshold for the last month, thus making him a green banner on the chart below.Inslee, sitting at 116 in the poll on April 29th, has outperformed expectations in five out of six polls since then, almost doubling his score over a period of 7 weeks.

Bernie Sanders is up 5 points as a secondary effect, as are Jeff Flake, Tulsi Gabbard and Eric Swalwell—5 points each. I always note changes which are (1) at least 5 points, and (2) at least 1% of the candidate’s total support.

Pete Buttigieg is down 20 points as a result of his small underperformance in yesterday’s poll.Both Buttigieg and Klobuchar were in BOTH the May 2nd poll, removed from the data, and yesterday’s voting.The net effect on Klobuchar was basically nothing, but Buttigieg loses a few points on balance.

Joe Biden is down 24 points as a secondary effect of the slippage of Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.On the chart below green indicates a candidate who is up 25% in the last 30 days.Biden has been showing in green, but he was JUST making the cut; he was up 25%--not 26%--yesterday and the day before.Slipping a little yesterday—which doesn’t really mean anything—cuts him to +23% over the past 30 days, and thus takes the green highlighting away from him.

Kirsten Gillebrand is down 25 points as a result of yesterday’s poll, and has dropped 42 points in the last two days due to a combination of things.However, Gillibrand is still up 30% in the last 30 days.My impression is that she actually is gaining a little bit, but that my polls for some reason had over-measured that and over-estimated it.This is a "market correction".

Elizabeth Warren is down 35 points as a secondary effect.It’s nothing in her case; she is giving back today a fourth of what she picked up yesterday.

Kamala Harris is down 70 points as a result of the removal of the May 2nd poll.Harris is down 14% in the last month and has slipped almost 30% from her peak on May 5th.Her current score is a low point for her.However, in her case I favor the "it’s a long race" theory.I think she has enough of a base to hang in the race indefinitely and make a charge possibly even several months from now.

These are the updated standings:

Rank

First

Last

Current

1

Elizabeth

Warren

1824

2

Joe

Biden

1153

3

Pete

Buttigieg

1147

4

Kamala

Harris

765

5

Amy

Klobuchar

481

6

Bernie

Sanders

440

7

Beto

O'Rourke

414

8

Cory

Booker

407

9

Stacey

Abrams

362

10

Donald

Trump

339

11

Kirsten

Gillibrand

322

12

Bill

Weld

244

13

Andrew

Yang

242

14

John

Hickenlooper

233

15

Jay

Inslee

222

16

Julian

Castro

211

17

Tulsi

Gabbard

166

18

Howard

Schultz

139

19

Michael

Bennet

135

20

Jeff

Flake

129

21

Eric

Swalwell

99

22

Steve

Bullock

91

23

Tim

Ryan

86

24

Seth

Moulton

84

25

Mike

Gravel

71

26

Marianne

Williamson

64

27

John

Delaney

63

28

Bill

de Blasio

47

29

Wayne

Messam

20

Thank you for your interest.

​

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bjamesI don't really agree with you that Weld has no chance to beat Trump in the primaries, and even if I did agree with that, it is not a pollster's place to pre-empt the discussion. 10:17 PM Jun 22nd

CharlesSaegerHonestly, I don't see why you bother including Trump in these heats. Essentially, you're polling the preferences of centrist Democrats since this is the overwhelming majority of your followers. Centrist Democrats or Never Trump Republicans. Including Sanders is a necessary evil even though this crowd obviously doesn't like him, but Trump (and the other Republicans, who have as much chance as being their nominee as I do) doesn't add anything.5:28 PM Jun 22nd